Today's installment of the Friday Know-It-All isn't just a lovely sendup of one my personal musical heroes, Ronnie James Dio (inventor of the "horns" hand sign!), and an opportunity to imagine an alternative timeline in which Quincy Jones didn't make the colossal mistake of leaving him off the "We Are the World" invite list. (Seriously, wtf Q?) It's also our chance to officially introduce you to the newest member of the Trivia Mafia editorial team, Aaron Retka. A nearly 20-year veteran trivia writer, editor, and host, Aaron joins Trivia Mafia as our new Editor-in-Chief, and we're thrilled to have him. (In case you're curious: Trivia Mafia's former Editor-in-Chief — that would be me — is still very much involved... just less-so on the writing side of things.) Aaron comes to us from another (dare I say, "rival"?) trivia company, but judging from the story below, I'd say it's clear he'll fit right in here. Take it away, Aaron! — Co-owner and former Editor-in-Chief Chuck

In 1985, metal music had a bit of an optics problem. The Satanic Panic had kicked off a few years earlier with the McMartin preschool debacle. Mötley Crüe frontman Vince Neil had recently killed a friend in a drunk-driving accident. Ozzy Osbourne (accidentally) bit the head off a bat. The Tipper Gore-led Parents Music Resource Center formed in May and assembled their so-called “Filthy Fifteen”: the 15 tracks they found most objectionable in all of music, nine of which were heavy metal songs. And, while big hair, rampant drug use, and sleazy innuendo were hallmarks of ’80s culture writ large, the rise of the Reagan-era Christian Right as societal arbiters meant that metal music, with all of its leathery rebellion and flirtation with spooky imagery, presented an easy target for puritanical busybodies looking to blame the corruption of the youth on, you know, something.

Maybe that’s why 40 metalheads, led by Ronnie James Dio, ended up buying, donating, and shipping $3 million worth of agricultural machinery. But first, let’s back up a bit. Sorry, but it’s going to be abrupt.

The Ethiopian Famine began in 1983. In the midst of the country’s decade-long civil war, government funds were reallocated to the military to put down rebels during a period of widespread drought and crop failure. This resulted in a humanitarian disaster that displaced millions of people. Eventually up to a million Ethiopians would die. Hundreds of thousands of kids were orphaned. If you, like me, were also a child at the time, you remember what a big, heartbreaking deal it was.

Bob Geldof, the singer for the Irish band Boomtown Rats and a fixture in the British music scene, saw a BBC report on the famine in late 1984 and rushed into action. His connections brought in socially conscious pop musicians from across the U.K. and Ireland, who hurried to write and record a song before the holidays. (Yes, Bono was there.)

The result: the supergroup that called themselves Band Aid, and their well-meaning but idiotic banger “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”¹ The single was an instant hit. BBC Radio 1 played it every hour. It sold 3.75 million copies in the U.K. alone and reached No. 1 on the pop charts in 16 different countries. The U.S. wasn’t one of those… because, as it turned out, we had our own thing brewing.

Just weeks later, longtime human rights activist Harry Belafonte roped in Lionel Richie, producer Quincy Jones, and Michael Jackson to write and record America’s answer to Band Aid. And on January 28, 1985, following the American Music Awards ceremony hosted by Richie², nearly 50 of America’s ’80s-est pop stars gathered at A&M Studios to lay down “We Are the World.” It was a watershed moment in the history of American music, one that enshrined nearly everyone who participated in the pantheon of pop royalty. But left out of that, probably quite on purpose, was anyone tainted with the Satanic stank of metal. One metalhead who took that personally: our hero, Ronnie James Dio.

Ronnie was deep into recording his third album with his eponymous group Dio when the “We Are the World” sessions happened, and he felt slighted. He was, after all, a legendary vocalist, the guy who stepped into Black Sabbath when Ozzy was finally fired, a founding member of proto-metal group Rainbow, and the frontman for a new group whose two big singles, “Rainbow in the Dark” and “Holy Diver,” were getting heavy airplay on the newfangled thing called MTV. He was a big deal!

“Ronnie had wanted to be part of that,” said Dio’s manager and widow, Wendy, in the 2021 documentary “Dio: Dreamers Never Die.” “But we were nasty, dirty, heavy metal people.”

Wouldn’t you have felt snubbed too? He’s freakin’ Dio! He’s got a five-octave range! And USA for Africa instead chooses to invite… Dan Aykroyd? Not only Huey Lewis, but all of the News? Even the creepy Nick Cave-lookin’ one? Boo!

More than a great singer, Ronnie was a tiny little guy with a huge heart that broke at the news of what was going on in Ethiopia. He’d seen how successful Band Aid and USA for Africa had been, and he wanted to help. Turns out, Dio bassist Jimmy Bain and guitarist Vivian Campbell did, too. As Campbell later told Guitar Interactive magazine:

“So, at that time, that 'We Are The World' thing had come out, with Michael Jackson and all the pop stars that made this great record. And Jimmy and I … happened to do an interview for a station called KLOS in Los Angeles, and the DJ asked us, 'How come nobody from the hard rock world was invited to participate in that?' And we thought, 'You know, you're absolutely right.’”

Barred from the mainstream famine relief supergroup, Campbell, Bain, and Dio wasted no time writing their own, much more metal, song. Then Ronnie picked up the phone.

Legendary rock photographer Mark Weiss, who shot the sessions that would follow, told Yahoo, “If anyone were to pull it off, I don't think anyone else was going to but Ronnie. … Ronnie was like the godfather of rock, pretty much. He was like a big brother, maybe even like a father figure, to a lot of these artists.”

Dokken frontman Don Dokken echoed that, saying, “When Ronnie James Dio asks for your help, you go.”

Hair metal was ascendant and the Los Angeles scene was thriving at the time. Ronnie, the father figure, had no trouble roping in metal luminaries not just from the L.A. area, but from touring bands and groups across the pond. He’d eventually get over 40 metal dudes assembled, and gave the project the very radical name Hear N’ Aid.

It included members of Quiet Riot, Judas Priest, Vanilla Fudge, Rough Cutt, W.A.S.P., Night Ranger, Iron Maiden, Dokken, Blue Öyster Cult, Mötley Crüe, Queensrÿche, and many others, including in-character members of Spinal Tap³, recording in the exact A&M studio that produced “We Are the World.”

The song itself, called “Stars,” is Dio at their Dio-est: towering power chords, big dumb drums, some galloping freight-train palm-mutes, and plenty of room for the chorus of metal singers to shine. There’s also, like, so much guitar soloing: the song has a runtime of 7:10, and 3:34 of that, by my count, is made up of dueling guitar solos by shredders like the aforementioned Malmsteen and Campbell, Buck Dharma of Blue Öyster Cult, Twisted Sister’s Eddie Ojeda, and Journey’s Neal Schon⁴. Does the song sound almost exactly like “Rainbow in the Dark”? Well… yeah. But who cares? It rules, and it was for a very good cause. And, it may have helped humanize those nasty, dirty heavy metal people… which might have been their goal all along.

“I love that it showed that just because you’re into metal, it doesn’t mean you’re a moron,” said music historian Eddie Trunk. “You can still have social issues, you can still care about things, you can still care about people.”

Or, as Vince Neil put it, “We’re not these evil people just after sex and drugs and money. This is one way where our fame can help people.” (That Neil is visibly hammered in the clip may undercut his point.)

So why haven’t you ever heard of this? Well, contract disputes between each of the artists and their respective labels held up the release until New Year’s Day 1986, nearly a year after “We Are the World” hit shelves. That was also technically after the actual famine had officially ended. All of that, along with metal’s still comparatively niche appeal, added up to perhaps a smaller splash than Dio and the rest of Hear N’ Aid had hoped to make.⁵
All in all, music relief efforts, including Geldof’s 1985 blockbuster concert Live Aid, raised a total of about $200 million for the Ethiopian famine. Hear N’ Aid’s portion of that, according to Wendy Dio? About $3 million. It was a drop in the bucket of the total funds raised, but Dio learned from Band Aid’s mistakes, which included money lost to grift and corruption and donated food famously rotting on docks. Instead, Ronnie formed an accredited, legitimate nonprofit and used Hear N’ Aid’s funds to buy farming equipment, which was safely and responsibly distributed to the people of Ethiopia. Now that’s metal!

And that’s all there is to know this week. Thanks for reading! – Editor-in-Chief Aaron

¹ Ethiopia is home to one of the world’s oldest Christian populations, and nearly three quarters of Ethiopians identify as Christian. So yeah, they do know it’s Christmas, y’all.

² Where he also won six awards of his own. Awkward!

³ Spinal Tap’s Michael McKean was one of the few musicians who was late to the session, as he had been shooting on the set of “Clue” all day. He reportedly changed into his costume in the bathroom, and emerged to do an interview in full David St. Hubbins deadpan, saying, “I met this Yngwie Malmsteen person, you know. I like the way he puts ‘Yngwie J. Malmsteen’ on his albums so you don’t confuse him with all the other Yngwie Malmsteens in the business.”

⁴ It’s worth noting that, by virtue of Schon’s “Stars” solo, Journey was the only band to have members present at both USA for Africa and Hear N’ Aid sessions.

⁵ But Hear N’ Aid wasn’t the only famine-relief supergroup you’ve never heard of! There was France’s Chanteurs sans frontières, who recorded the song “Éthiopie”; the Yugoslav group YU Rock Misija; and best of all, Canada’s Northern Lights, which featured Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, Neil Young, Anne Murray, Bryan Adams, Rush, and the Guess Who, doing the schmalz-tastic “Tears Are Not Enough” — which yes, has a verse in French, naturellement.